Materiomics

Materiomics is defined as the study of the material properties of natural and synthetic materials by examining fundamental links between processes, structures and properties at multiple scales, from nano to macro, by using systematic experimental, theoretical or computational methods.

The term has been independently proposed with slightly different definitions by T. Akita et al. (AIST/Japan, 2004), M. Buehler (MIT/USA, 2008) and J. de Boer and C. van Blitterswijk (University of Twente/The Netherlands, 2008) in analogy to genomics, the study of an organism's entire genome. Similarly, materiomics refers to the study of the processes, structures and properties of materials from a fundamental, systematic perspective by incorporating all relevant scales, from nano to macro, in the synthesis and function of materials and structures. The integrated view of these interactions at all scales is referred to as a material's materiome.

Materiomics includes the study of a broad range of materials, which includes metals, ceramics and polymers as well as biological materials and tissues and their interaction with synthetic materials. Materiomics finds applications in elucidating the biological role of materials in biology, for instance in the progression and diagnosis or the treatment of diseases. Others have proposed to apply materiomics concepts to help identify new material platforms for tissue engineering applications, for instance for the de novo development of biomaterials. Materiomics might also hold promises for nanoscience and nanotechnology, where the understanding of material concepts at multiple scales could enable the bottom-up development of new structures and materials or devices, including biomimetic and bioinspired structures.

The understanding of the materiome is still at its infancy, as the role of the relationship between processes, structures and properties of materials in particular in biological organisms is thus far only partially explored and understood. Approaches in studying the materiome include multi-scale simulation methods (e.g. molecular dynamics), multi-scale experiments (e.g. AFM, optical tweezers, nanoindentation, micromechanics, etc.) as well as high-throughput methods based on combination of these techniques.

Materiomics is related to proteomics, where the difference is the focus on material properties, stability, failure and mechanistic insight into multi-scale phenomena.